TRENTON — In opening trial arguments Wednesday, a defense attorney argued that police are attempting to frame a Morrisville teen accused of burning down her boyfriend’s house because he took another girl to the prom.

Robin Lord said Shanta Dargbeh, charged with attempted murder and aggravated arson in the May 22, 2008 fire, is the victim of overworked police who were looking to close a case at a time of heavy gang violence and murder, defense attorney Robin Lord said in opening statements at her trial.

Although police have a witness in Keisha Israel who said she rode along with Dargbeh the night she went to the house, Lord said detectives never bothered to corroborate Israel’s story. Israel told police she saw where Dargbeh disposed of gloves, matches and shoes after the crime and helped the police to recover those items.

“They took the information and closed the case,” Lord said. “They did no investigation whatsoever to corroborate whether Keisha Israel was telling the truth.

Lord told jurors that Drew Butler, the longtime boyfriend who allegedly sparked Dargbeh’s ire, has a brother named Tony who was involved in gang activity. Police never bothered to check out how that fit into the house fire, she said.

“May 2008, the most violent month in the history of the city of Trenton,” Lord said. “Gang related crimes were horrific. There was an anti-violence march that day in Trenton. And less than an hour (before the fire) a girl was shot in the head and killed in a gang related shooting on West State Street Was any effort made to relate the two crimes? No. A week before, on Mother’s Day , a 10-year-old girl died in a gang related arson. Same M.O., front porch lit. Was any effort made at all to link the two? Oh no! We have Keisha Israel, let’s just take her word for it.”

Assistant Prosecutor Alvin McGowan told jurors that Dargbeh, now 21, was furious with Butler when she learned he took another girl to the Trenton High School senior prom.
A week later she sneaked to his family’s home on Hillcrest Avenue in the middle of the night and set it on fire, forcing Butler and eight family members to flee for their lives, he said.

The jilted teen showed no concern for the family sleeping inside when she crept to their porch and lit it, he said.

“She set his house on fire and left because she was not taken to the prom,” McGowan told jurors as he concluded his opening remarks Wednesday.
Lord scoffed at that idea.

“She set his house on fire because she wasn’t taken to the prom?” she asked jurors, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Does anybody really believe that? Is that really a motive?”
Lord said Dargbeh had already graduated from Trenton High and was studying nursing at Bucks County Community College in Pennsylvania when Butler went to his senior prom with someone else.

She said Dargbeh and Butler dated through high school and never attended a prom together.

“This isn’t the event of the century that you have to go to and if you don’t you burn a house down,” Lord said.

She alleged that police jumped at the chance to charge Dargbeh when Israel called to say her friend had set the fire.

McGowan said Israel told police she was under the impression Dargbeh was going to retrieve some clothes from Butler’s house when the two teens drove to his home that night. Israel stayed in the car as Dargbeh got out, he said. When Dargbeh returned, Israel saw flames coming from the house, he said.

“When Miss Dargbeh was asked about the fire (by Israel) she said, “I don’t care if he dies in there,’” McGowan said.

It was Israel’s brother-in-law who encouraged her to call police, McGowan said. Israel led investigators to the garbage can where Dargbeh had disposed of the gloves and Croc shoes she’d worn that night and the matches she’d used to set the fire, he said.

In the first day of testimony, the state called Stanley Davis, Butler’s dad, who described how he and his wife roused their seven sleeping children — ages 12 months to 18 years — from bed to flee the flames spreading up from the first floor of their home.
“I knew we couldn’t get down those steps so we kept going higher,” he said.

Nine family members scaled down a third story fire escape wearing nothing but pajamas, he said.

“Then we went across the street and watched the house burn,” he said.
Under cross examination Davis said he’d known Dargbeh for years as a quiet polite girl who never threatened the family.

Lord questioned him about his sons’ alleged gang activities, and Davis acknowledged that his sons had been victims of shootings and other violent episodes. He also admitted on cross examination that he kept a space heater and a gasoline-powered generator on the front porch.

In other testimony, a city firefighter said the fire appeared to have been started on the front porch and that he’d called in arson investigators immediately after the fire was extinguished.

Trenton Police Detective Michael Krunchinsky testified that he’d found a gas can near the house but that Davis had said it was his gas can.

When the trial adjourned for the day, Dargbeh’s parents, who emigrated to the U.S. from Liberia with their daughter in 2000, said they believe she is innocent.

“She got mixed up in a bad peer group,” said Sylvester Dargbeh. “I think it was the boyfriend who was in these activities. He had a lot going on and she got caught up in it. I think she’s being framed because she’s foreign and she was an easy target.”